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Beautiful staircase leading to the other floors at the San Mateo library
Event on 12/14/06 in San Mateo.
Penni Gladstone / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

LIBRARIES17
Beautiful staircase leading to the other floors at the San Mateo library
Event on 12/14/06 in San Mateo.
Penni Gladstone / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: Penni Gladstone

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LIBRARIES17
Fabulous periodical reading area in the San Mateo library.
Event on 12/14/06 in San Mateo.
Penni Gladstone / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

LIBRARIES17
Fabulous periodical reading area in the San Mateo library.
Event on 12/14/06 in San Mateo.
Penni Gladstone / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: Penni Gladstone

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Studing for a final at the Belmont library are Notre Dame high school students, left Carolyn Giannini age 17, in white is Brittany Thayer age 17, and behind Thayer is Roxanne Loo age 16.
Event on 12/14/06 in San Mateo.
Penni Gladstone / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT less

LIBRARIES17
Studing for a final at the Belmont library are Notre Dame high school students, left Carolyn Giannini age 17, in white is Brittany Thayer age 17, and behind Thayer is Roxanne Loo age 16.
Event on ... more

Photo: Penni Gladstone

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HERCULES, CA - DECEMBER 14: The new Hercules Public Library on December 14, 2006 in Hercules, California. Photo by David Paul Morris/The Chronicle

HERCULES, CA - DECEMBER 14: The new Hercules Public Library on December 14, 2006 in Hercules, California. Photo by David Paul Morris/The Chronicle

Photo: David Paul Morris

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HERCULES, CA - DECEMBER 14: The new Hercules Public Library on December 14, 2006 in Hercules, California. Photo by David Paul Morris/The Chronicle

HERCULES, CA - DECEMBER 14: The new Hercules Public Library on December 14, 2006 in Hercules, California. Photo by David Paul Morris/The Chronicle

Photo: David Paul Morris

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LIBRARIES17
Inside the Belmont library.
Event on 12/14/06 in San Mateo.
Penni Gladstone / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

LIBRARIES17
Inside the Belmont library.
Event on 12/14/06 in San Mateo.
Penni Gladstone / The Chronicle MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/ -MAGS OUT

Photo: Penni Gladstone

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3 NEW ICONS OF COMMUNITY PRIDE / Libraries designed to reflect civic priorities in Belmont, Hercules and San Mateo

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No government building has the presence of a good library.

It's not a city hall where you do business or a jail where you do time. Libraries exist to unfurl dreams, offering access to knowledge and entertainment and everything in between. They symbolize the ideal that all citizens have a right to be informed.

Architecturally, they can symbolize something else: a community's self-image. That's the case with three distinctive new Bay Area libraries -- buildings in Hercules, Belmont and San Mateo that seem shaped by the aspirations of each city as much as the need to find space for books.

All three newcomers show libraries' new user-friendly tone. There are discreet cafes, automated checkout systems, and books displayed to catch the eye as though you were entering a bookstore. Computers are everywhere.

But the exterior of each library is quite different, and each strikes a quite different pose.

San Mateo's new limestone-cloaked library is the most imposing both in size and design. At 90,000 square feet it is more than four times the size of its counterparts. It also has a larger-than-life aura -- the long three-story structure is a commanding 50 feet high, with two-story windows and columns to accent the verticality.

One city south in Belmont, the library looks exactly like the relaxed retreat you'd expect to find in this affluent suburb: low and modern, with a stone and stucco exterior and an L-shaped layout with glass walls trained on six mature oaks.

The library in Hercules in western Contra Costa County is the one that sets out to stop you in your tracks.

It's a robust cube wedged with sculptural force against a hillside where Sycamore Avenue meets Civic Drive. There's one enormous window that forms a sort of prow where the two streets meet; the rest is tautly wrapped in dark, earthy brick that runs up and down instead of across, and comes in varied lengths and hues.

Imagine a building coated in the world's richest burlap.

All this is architectural bravado, but in the context of Hercules it's needed.

This city didn't exist until the 1970s, when the Hercules Powder Co. ceased operations and sold off its land to builders. Now there's a population of 24,000 and an attractive park system, but also a drab smear of shopping centers along Sycamore Avenue. It's the busiest road in town -- and a boulevard where McDonald's color-saturated play structure was the most arresting object in sight until the library came along.

With the library, it's as though Hercules wanted to compensate for the vague banality that otherwise defines the center of town. That may explain the choice of Arizona architect Will Bruder, whose expressive past work includes the Phoenix Central Library and who designed the new library with the firm HGA.

Compared to the emphatic exterior, the inside of the library is light and expansive.

The entrance is tucked off Civic Drive; walk in and the ceiling pulls down to focus your view on an oval glass-enclosed courtyard where a single tree is poised atop a berm.

On the left is the children's collection; on the right, the room opens wide to showcase the adult fiction and nonfiction and the ceiling slices up toward the prowlike corner. To filter out sunlight, the upper reaches of glass are etched on both sides to create what looks like a translucent curtain. This also frames views, accenting the low hills within which Hercules rests.

Sometimes the drama seems to strain the $10.4 million budget, as when standard-issue white paint covers the lofty interior walls and ceiling. But the library is enticingly easy to use, and it puts Hercules in a new perspective -- inside and out.

Visit the San Mateo library, by contrast, and the mood is one of creating a civic landmark rather than staking out civic turf. The $65 million budget includes $10 million raised from private donors for such purposes as a biotechnology alcove endowed by Genentech, and a business collection endowed by Franklin Templeton Investments.

The design by EHDD Architecture embodies the sense of refined ambition. Consider the library's procession of two-story spaces: The lobby is shallow but grand, with limestone floors and wood panels. To the right, an inviting stairway with glass railings leads to a high-ceilinged mezzanine that serves as the periodical room and has monumental slit windows showing off tall redwoods along the street.

Continue up the stairs and there's another atrium-like space -- but this one starts in the middle of the second floor, cutting through the third floor to a raised ceiling designed to allow natural ventilation to reduce the building's energy use.

What's so smart here is that the three spaces aren't just for show: They make the library interior feel like one intricate logical journey rather than three autonomous floors. The one flaw that results from the emphasis on an upward march and specialized nooks: The regular collection's shelves and stacks almost seem an afterthought, off to the side rather than the reason for being.

Ultimately, the most satisfying library of the three is Belmont's -- the one with the most modest aims.

It also has the smallest budget, $8.2 million. There's no pretension and no design pyrotechnics. The exterior is a refined contemporary box that is a snug single story, except where the roof snaps back to allow for high windows that show off the stand of mature oaks and a neighborhood park.

Inside, those venerable oaks are the first thing you notice; the second is the especially convivial spread of books (this is the only library where "Proust at the Majestic" is displayed alongside "Git-R-Done" by Larry the Cable Guy). What gradually sinks in is how warm the space is, from the black ceramic tile on the floor of the foyer to the ceiling's white maple.

The result is as supple as warm leather and a tribute to the architectural firm Field Paoli for grasping the virtue of restraint.

From this vantage point, the Hercules library has an unfinished feel -- as if the ambition of Bruder and HGA exceeded the scope of the job. San Mateo's library radiates a cool efficiency that tips toward the businesslike.

But that's quibbling. At the end of the day, three communities have invested in the belief that free access to information should be a social priority. The result in each case is impressive. And that investment will pay dividends for generations to come.